


I Have a Problem, and That Problem Is You

by define_lying



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 15:59:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3984118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/define_lying/pseuds/define_lying
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one in which Dex is totally dying and Nursey needs to chill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Have a Problem, and That Problem Is You

**Author's Note:**

> This was all inspired by [sunshiinerosie](http://sunshiinerosie.tumblr.com) who has the best tags in the universe. Rosie, thank you for your wonderful DexNursey obsession. Without you, these fools may have never gotten their midnight cuddles.
> 
> Major thanks to [haroldsmodellegs](http://haroldsmodellegs.tumblr.com) as always. I would die without your edits, my love.

The thing nobody tells you about college is that some nights are infinitely boring. There are no parties. No shows. No games. Nothing. So you stare at your ceiling and wait for the infinite void of sleep to swallow you whole and save you from the endless monotony of life. Or something like that. 

Derek flops over onto his stomach, smothering his face in the pillow. The dorm room is quiet except for the echo of the pouring rain outside. He’s pretty sure his roommate is at the library, judging by the missing backpack. There’s nothing to do. He’s read all of his books of poetry more times than he can count and he really doesn’t feel like walking down to the common room only to find more empty couches and silent halls. 

It’s not like the atmosphere is unfamiliar to Derek. There were a lot of nights like this at Andover. One night you’d have guys chasing you down the hall in their underwear, the next it was like all life had ceased to exist. Only, back then they had curfews and hawk-eyed monitors who’d threaten you into submission. It worked sometimes. 

The weather really doesn’t help. Rain has been coming down in sheets for the past hour and the pasty weather guy on Channel 14 had swaggered his way through a report on how some big storm was coming through, before cracking an obnoxious joke about heat waves. “ _Wave_ goodbye to those sunny days, folks.” Derek wants to groan every time this guy opens his mouth, but Dex is the one to turn on the channel at breakfast on the weekends, and Derek’s not about to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much the weather guy drives him crazy. He’s got a reputation to maintain. 

Either way, the rain won’t be letting up until the next morning. 

On his desk, Derek’s phone pings with the sound of a new text message. At least someone at Samwell is still alive. Rolling over and flicking open the lock screen, he sees it’s from Bitty. 

 _All set for the storm?_  

Derek smiles at the message. Bitty’s become notorious for mothering his Frogs as much as possible. Usually most of his attention is fixated on Chow, but Derek doesn’t exactly mind the free lunches, baked goods, and care packages that show up on his doorstep every couple of weeks. He taps out a reply, letting Bitty know that he’s fine and asking about the guys at the Haus. 

Bitty only takes a few seconds to respond.

_Ransom and Holster are making a fort in the living room. They dragged all their sheets down from the attic and I’m not sure where all these lights came from. And Chowder’s staying the night. I’m not letting anyone outside in this weather._

Derek’s about to start typing out a response when another message pops up.

_You haven’t heard from Dex, have you?_

He frowns at his phone. Derek hasn’t talked to Dex since practice, and they both live in different buildings. They don’t exactly spend a ton of free time together outside of Faber or the Haus.  _No,_ he sends back. _Haven’t seen him since this afternoon._  

Bitty knows they don’t hang out, though, so why is he asking? It’d make more sense to check with Chowder. He waits for a minute with thumbs hovering over the screen and no sign of response from Bitty before adding, _Why?_

The three dots pop up and Derek feels slightly ridiculous. So what if Bitty’s asking about Dex? He probably just locked himself in the computer lab again, like he does every Sunday. Poindexter can take care of himself. It’s not like Derek's worried. 

_He wasn’t looking so good after practice today and he didn’t answer my texts earlier. I’m sure it’s nothing though. He always gets worked up before Finals._

After practice? Derek can’t remember anything being particularly out of the ordinary. The two of them had gotten into a fight over the fact that Dex couldn’t seem to complete any fucking passes no matter how cleanly Derek sent them to him. Jack had stepped in pretty early, though, and Dex had disappeared before the rest of them even finished toweling off.  

But he wouldn’t ignore Bitty. Nobody ignored Bitty, not unless they wanted to face the wrath of half of the Samwell Men’s Hockey Team and wake up to an endless stream of frantic text messages.

Bitty is probably right. Dex is probably in a Ransom-like study coma in his room. He’ll be fine. But…

What if Bitty’s wrong? What if Dex isn’t holed up in his room? It’s a long walk from the CompSci building to the freshman dorms. What if he got caught in the rain and he’s currently lying in a waterlogged ditch, freezing to death?

Nah. That’s stupid. Chill, Nursey. Chill. 

(Derek’s mother always said he had an overactive imagination.)

The phone pings again with a message from Bitty.

_You’ll let me know if you hear from him?_

_Will do_ , Derek says. _Night, Bitty._ Bitty sends another message, wishing him a goodnight and telling him to be safe. Derek drops his phone on the bed, throwing an arm over his eyes. 

He lies like that for a while, and, despite all of his attempts, he can’t get Dex off his mind. Why didn’t he answer his phone? It’s only 10:30; still way too early for him to be asleep. Plus, he always kept his phone charged when he knew he’d be out late. And what did Bitty mean, “not looking good?” 

Derek sighs, shoulders dropping low. It can’t hurt to check, right? Dex’s dorm is just across the way, and it’s not like it’s raining that hard.

 

This was a terrible idea. Derek is standing in the rain, soaked through. A peal of thunder crashes overhead and Derek hates himself a little bit more. 

Only a few more feet to the door. Then he’ll call Dex and get inside.

As soon as Derek makes it under the awning, he pulls his phone out of his pocket, trying to wipe the damp screen on a dry corner of his shirt. He pulls up Dex’s contact information and hits the call button. It starts to ring and Derek lets out a shuddering breath. It’s fucking cold out here. Fuck the weather guy and his heat waves. Derek feels like his insides have turned to ice.

The phone rings at least seven times before kicking him over to voicemail. Shit. Dex isn’t worth this. If he’s not going to bother to answer his phone, Derek’s not going to bother checking on him. What was he thinking in the first place? 

Derek reaches into his jacket pocket for his key. He just wants to go home and crawl back into bed at this point. But there’s nothing there. Breath catching, his fingers scrape against the soft fabric, desperate for the cold, ribbed metal of the key. This is not happening. This is not fucking happening. He can’t get in without that key, and with his roommate gone for the night, there’s no one to let him in. 

Derek’s back slams against the glass of the entry door. Well, fuck. He’s about to give up and see if he can camp out in Founder’s for the night when it hits him. 

He knows where Dex’s window is. Bitty and Chowder decided they were going to decorate for Dex’s birthday, so there had been red and white streamers hanging out the window for weeks.

He’ll throw rocks. There’s no way Dex can ignore that. 

Grabbing the first stone he sees, Derek gets into position. Third floor, four over. The rain is obscuring his fogging his vision and the stone is constantly in danger of slipping from his palm, but Derek has no better plan right now.

The first rock flies up, making unexpectedly good contact, and Derek waits for a moment, but there’s no movement at the window. He grabs another, this one veering to the left. Still nothing. 

He feels like the protagonist in one of those cheesy high school movies that his sister likes. Standing there in the pouring rain, desperately throwing pebbles at their crushes’ window. Except it’s Dex’s window, and they are certainly not living out a sappy teen romance. 

Derek has the fifth stone in his hand when the window flies open. A pale and shirtless Dex is leaning half outside, and before Derek can open his mouth he’s screaming, “What the fuck, Nurse?!”

And oh shit, he’s mad. He’s really fucking mad. Derek’s not quite sure because of the rain, but Dex’s face looks redder than normal, and Derek’s only seen it flare up like that when he’s seriously pissed. 

“Let me in!” he yells back. Because, fuck it if Dex is pissed. He’s soaking wet out here, and Derek only came out for him in the first place.

“My window was open, you fucking moron!” Dex screams. And, oh, that explains at least some of the anger. “You hit me in the face with a fucking rock!”

“Why the fuck did you have your window open during a fucking thunderstorm?” Derek yells. It’s not like he was trying to hit Dex in the face with a rock. If he’d just answered his fucking phone like a normal person, they wouldn’t be in this situation. “Just let me the fuck in!”

Derek sees rather than hears Dex’s indignant grumbling, and then he’s slamming the window shut. That better mean he’s coming down. Derek runs back to his previous spot under the awning. 

He’s shivering and it feels like at least fifteen minutes have passed. Dex can be all kinds of annoying, but he wouldn’t stoop so low as to leave his teammate out in the rain, would he? Derek’s debating whether or not killing your fellow d-man counts as fratricide when the door next to him opens. 

Dex is standing there, now wearing a hoodie and a blanket and looking as miserable as humanly possible. “Are you coming in or what?” he says. 

Derek wastes no time sliding by him into the foyer. Inside feels wonderful. Inside is heavenly warm and Derek never wants to feel water against his body again. He wants to press his hands against the old-fashioned radiator and bathe himself in warm air. Now he just has to get these clothes off. 

“What are you even doing here?” Dex asks, snapping Derek out of his momentary trance. Right. How exactly do you explain this? 

 _You didn’t answer Bitty’s texts, and he said something was up, so I thought it would be a good idea to check on you. Only I forgot my key and stupidly locked myself out in the rain. So my only option was to throw rocks at your window like a love-struck teenager, and apparently that backfired too._ Yeah. Not happening.

“Bitty was worried,” he half-lies. “I’m the only one close by, so he asked me to come check on you.” He’s so fucking full of shit.

Dex blinks heavily, shifting sideways to lean against the wall next to the elevator. Derek notices the vibrant pink on his cheeks again, this time realizing it’s maybe not from anger like he thought. Dex is paler than normal, too. While he’s accustomed to the typical white bread skin and rosy cheeks of Dex’s normal complexion, this looks ghostly. Derek also picks up on the way Dex seems to be shivering every couple of minutes, despite his layers of clothing. 

Dex blinks again, taking a bit too long to open his eyes. He lets out a soft cough before croaking, “I’m fine. It’s really nothing to worry about.”

Uh huh. Yeah. Very convincing, Poindexter. Derek gets what Bitty was talking about now. It hits him, too, that this is probably the reason Dex was playing so shitty in practice today. Self-destructive bastard doesn’t know when to throw in the towel. The look he gives him says as much.

The elevator dings upon its arrival, and Dex doesn’t say anything when Derek follows after him. That’s a first. When they arrive on the third floor, Derek notices that Dex’s hall is just as quiet as his own. Apparently all sane people know better than to venture out into the rain at this time of night.

Dex continues shuffling down the hall, barely even picking his feet up off the worn carpet. Derek can’t stand the quiet anymore. “So were you just planning to suffer in silence, or…?” Derek shrugs.

Dex shoots him a dirty look as he fumbles with the key. “I can take care of myself, thanks.” His flushed face and fragile movements say otherwise.

“Right,” Derek scoffs. “And it looks like you’ve been doing such a great job.”  Who the hell is he trying to fool? The guy looks like he could fall apart from a stiff breeze. 

“And who asked you?” Dex’s eyes narrow. Derek follows him into the now open room. “I’ve been perfectly fi—“ he’s cut off by a quick string of wet sounding coughs. Dex takes a deep breath, holding his chest unconsciously. “I’ve been perfectly fine in the past. I’ll be perfectly fine now.” His eyes, no matter how fever glazed they look, spark with golden defiance.

Derek really didn’t want to do this tonight, but his words are coming out faster than his brain can catch up. “Oh ho! You don’t need anybody do you? You’re too goddamn self-reliant for that.”

“You got some kind of problem with me, Nurse?” Dex says, tension rolling off his tongue.

“You can’t open up! You don’t seem to understand how to accept help when you need it.”

“I told you.” He coughs. “I don’t need any help.”

“Well if you’re so fucking fine, I might as well leave,” Derek says, raising his voice. 

“Fine! Go!” Dex all but shouts. Derek’s turning to leave, ready to slam the door shut behind him, when the room is illuminated in a flash of light and the biggest thunder clap yet sounds over head. 

In the fight, they hadn’t noticed the storm mounting in the background. Both boys stand frozen in place at the noise, the heavy sound of rain and wind deafening in the aftermath. Derek still hasn’t moved when he hears a muttered “Shit,” from behind him.

Derek looks over his shoulder to see Dex rubbing his face. He drops down to sit on the bed, saying, “There’s no way you’re going home in this.” Derek finally turns at that. Dex drops the hand from his face. He looks utterly exhausted. “You can take the floor. I have an extra pillow and some dry clothes you can borrow.”

Derek stills for a moment before nodding. He’s not really sure what his plan was going to be upon leaving, come to think of it. Dex tells him to check the top drawer of the wardrobe and he indulges in the soft warmth of the dry sweats and t-shirt he finds on top. By the time he turns back around, Dex has shucked off his hoodie and crawled back into bed. He takes the discarded blanket for his nest on the floor and mutters a quick thanks before curling up.

The floor is cold and hard and not nearly as comfortable as Derek’s bed, but it is dry. However, that doesn’t make it much easier to sleep on. So he’s stuck lying awake, marveling at how fucked this night became. 

He’d just wanted to…to what? Help? Here he was lecturing Dex on opening up and he couldn’t even tell him why he came over in the first place. What a fucking joke. 

He should’ve never left his dorm.

The floor sucks, Derek decides. There’s no way in hell he’s getting to sleep tonight, and Dex’s coughing isn’t helping anyone. It comes in waves. Every couple minutes brings a new round of wet hacking coughs. Derek gets about fifteen minutes of blissful silence before Dex starts up again.

But this round sounds bad. Like, really bad. The coughing is harsher than before and Derek can hear quiet gasps in between. He rolls over, realizing Dex isn’t just lying in bed anymore. His body jackknifes forward on each cough; eyes screwed tight and face red. It looks and sounds like he’s not getting enough air.

Before he knows what he’s doing, Derek is off the floor, wrapping an arm around Dex’s back and patting lightly to try to ease the pain. He vaguely remembers his nanny doing something like this when he was sick as a kid. She said it helped his chest, and he never really questioned her. 

Dex’s coughs get quieter, softer, and the patting turns into a hopefully-soothing rub up and down. The tension seeps out of his body and he slumps, heavy against Derek’s chest.

“You good, bro?” Derek asks. Dex is overly-warm and quiet against him, the only sound in the room coming from his labored breath.

“Yeah.” His voice is wrecked. It’s thready and weak, and it doesn’t sound like he’s going to say any more. Derek can’t see his face, but he’s willing to bet Dex is doing that heavy blinking thing from before.

Derek’s not used to this. He’s never had to take care of someone before. There had always been help available for that sort of thing, his nanny or a nurse or someone. It’s not like the Student Health Clinic would be open now. What exactly does one do in this situation? Check their temperature?

Derek’s hand brushes against Dex’s brow. It’s definitely not supposed to be that hot. He thinks he remembers something about fluids being important.

“Do you have any water?” he asks. When Dex doesn’t respond, he nudges his shoulder. ”Hey,” Derek says. The redhead groans briefly and shifts in his arms. “Do you have any water?”

Dex grumbles again, rolling away. “Ran out,” he mumbles. Shit.

Derek spots an empty cup on the far corner of Dex’s desk and slips off the bed with a quick, “Be right back.”

 If Derek hears a soft “Don’t want help,” he ignores it.

It’s a quick trip to the hall bathroom, which is just as deserted as the rest of the dorm. The tiles are cold against his feet, and it sends a chill through his body. The clock on the wall says it’s just past midnight. As lukewarm water fills the cup, Derek wonders if he should’ve called Bitty like he said. He’d know what to do in this situation. Hell, he’d probably be over with a canister of hot soup and battery of cold supplies within the hour. 

The crashing sound of rain and thunder still echoed outside, though, and Derek knew he could never ask his teammate to come out in this weather. He’d call in the morning if Dex still wasn’t better.

Dex is in the same position when Derek gets back to the room, curled up against the wall. Derek presses a hand to his shoulder, tells him to drink, and sits back on the bed, one leg curled beneath him. Dex passes the cup back a moment later, muttering something indecipherable into his pillow. 

Derek is about to put the cup on the desk when he notices the Housman book lying next to Dex’s phone. A smile pokes at the corners of his mouth as he says, “Didn’t know you liked poetry.”

“Huh?” The comforter shifts behind him. He can feel Dex brush against his arm, craning to see what Derek is talking about. “Oh. No, that’s Nursey’s.” Dex drops back down onto the bed and the mattress shakes. 

Derek blinks for a moment without turning because 1.) Dex doesn’t seem to realize who he’s talking to, and 2.) Derek knows for a fact that he doesn’t own this book. Or, at least this copy. His is on a shelf in his room, pages carefully worn, with maybe a few too many dirt stains and scuff marks on the cover. It’s nothing like this, with its shiny hard cover and white pressed paper.

It’s new.

Derek’s smile widens and it’s probably a good thing Dex is so out of it right now, but he still can’t stop himself from saying, “Uh huh, Dex. Whatever you say.” He’s already planning his chirps for when Dex is feeling better.

Derek wasn’t expecting a response, so he’s mildly surprised when he hears the quiet “Shut up. I’m cold, “ behind him. And, oh, that’s Dex’s face pressed against his side. 

Derek puts the book down, eyes soft. “Then scoot over, man,” he says. He lies down on his side, chest pressed against Dex’s bare back. “Body heat.” He throws an arm over Dex’s waist.

Dex lets out a deep exhale and few light coughs, but then his body goes soft and solid under Derek’s arm. The thunder has quieted, but the rain still beats heavily against the window. It’s warm with the two of them, and Dex’s bed is surprisingly comfortable. 

Derek’s eyes are drooping low, far too heavy all of a sudden. Despite his better judgment, he thinks running out in the rain may have been a great idea after all.

**Author's Note:**

> The book of poems on Dex's desk is "A Shropshire Lad" by A. E. Housman. I suggest checking out poem XIII if you want major pining!Dex feels. 
> 
> Reviews are always appreciated!


End file.
